Specialized phones, called conference phones, are used when several people in a meeting room want to hold a voice call with one or more persons at another location. A conference phone typically has one speaker and a series of microphones that provide audio pickup 360 degrees around the unit. Through conference calls, meetings or presentations can be provided across different locations. Conference calling is viewed as a primary means of cutting travel costs and allowing workers to be more productive by not having to go to out-of-office for meetings.
Nonetheless, a typical issue associated with conference phones is picking up audio of participants in a room who are not close to the conference phone, for example, in a large board room. To overcome these challenges, manufacturers of conference phones have provided the ability to plug extension microphones into the base phone to extend the reach of the audio pickup of the conference phone. These extension microphones are generally connected to the base phone by long wires, which often run along the tabletop causing clutter. Commonly, the microphones have to be moved around so the participants on the far end of the call can hear the speaker. This requires managing the wires connecting the microphones, which often are not long enough to reach the person speaking.
In other instances where the room might be crowded, participants might not be able to sit at the table where they would be close to the conference phone microphones. As a result, the participants are too far away from the conference phone to be heard by the participants on the far end of the conference call. Because they are not at the conference table, it is difficult to get an extension microphone to a location that would allow them to be heard.
A need therefore exists for solving the problem of providing audio pickup in large conference rooms. The present application addresses these issues encountered in conference phones and provides other, related advantages.